


tracing constellations

by vexedcer



Series: okay (or something similar) [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Graduation, Road Trips, Slow Build, Star Gazing, blam as hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 10:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7432059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexedcer/pseuds/vexedcer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam glances at him from across the cab to where he’s lounging with his feet on the dash, and smiles at him over his sunglasses, and he’s never looked so beautiful and free in all the time he’s known him.</p><p>Blaine smiles back, grin so wide it hurts and he feels free too.</p><p>Or; a Blam Road Trip AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tracing constellations

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [shade our faces from the sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4785476) by [soulgraves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulgraves/pseuds/soulgraves). 



> See end notes for a full trigger list. It seems long but everything is passing mentions and not explored in depth. Better safe than sorry man.
> 
> hi so. this is my second Glee fic, and I still can't believe i've written it, and in two days. go me.  
> I did so much random ass research for this fic, so shoutout to windows2universe.org for the info on the stars, doodahdiner.com for the food in the diner, the Gleeverse Timeline over on talking-gleeks.tumblr.com, among other things. I also spent a lot of time worrying over dialogue (cos its not a thing i'm good at) to the point where I gave up caring, so if at any point the dialogue seems out of voice, soz. I tried.
> 
> anyways, enjoy!!

It’s a ridiculous idea, and Blaine thinks that’s why it's was so appealing. A roadtrip across the country with his best friend after graduating their senior year? Not uncommon. 

A guy who's maybe-ex-maybe-not boyfriend is waiting for him in the city of his dreams, going on a road trip with his best friend/crush after his senior year? Blaine’s willing to bet every bowtie he owns that this isn’t a common occurrence. 

But Kurt and Blaine aren’t officially back together, so he doesn’t need his permission to disappear for the better part of two months. His parents have already set him up with an apartment to share with Sam (after some convincing) when they arrive in the Fall, for NYADA and the Pratt Institute respectively, so they don’t have to worry about hauling all of their stuff to Bushwick.

As much as he hates it when his parents’ try and buy his love, this time it benefits Sam as well, so he’ll let it slide.

Sam’s old chevy is in better working order than ever after Burt’s been under the hood. It’s pretty beat up, scuffed up and dented, but it rolls over asphalt like it’s at least a few years younger than what’s on the license plate.

The radio is cranked all the way up, blaring local classic rock stations that fizzle in and out as they pass through moderately sized towns. They fill the silence themselves with tried-and-true glee club hits, as well as some from their own repertoires. Most of Sam’s are country songs; Blaine can almost hear the twanging guitar.

The windows are wound down, the wind blowing both of their hair wildly. Blaine’s hair gel had mysteriously disappeared out of his bag about a week ago, and when he asked, Sam oh-so-innocently suggested he may have left it in the last of the cheap motel rooms they’ve crashed in. 

His friend’s hands beat along to the rhythm of the radio against the steering wheel, head moving to the beat in a way that just makes his hair move even more, and it’s nice. Simple.

Sam glances at him from across the cab to where he’s lounging with his feet on the dash, and smiles at him over his sunglasses, and he’s never looked so beautiful and free in all the time he’s known him.

Blaine smiles back, grin so wide it hurts and he feels free too.

Sam’s family are the nicest folks Blaine’s ever met; Mrs. Evans has her arms around Sam before he’s even fully out of the car, and she moves onto Blaine like he’s another son, and pays no heed to the fact that they both reek. Mr. Evans shakes his hand with a firm grip and a smile that crinkles around his eyes, and insists he calls him Dwight.

The dynamic of the house is so much different than what he’s used to at home. His own experiences of family, he’s aware, are pretty cold by comparison, his dad’s coolness and his mother’s harried workload and Cooper’s absence. But the Evans’ home always seems noisy and bright, with Stevie and Stacey running around and bubbling pots and pans. 

“ - and if you’d let us know you’d be coming sooner - _ Stacey, put that down _ \- I could have gotten a cot out of the attic, rather than having Sam on the couch -” Mrs. Evans laments, as she stirs a pot wafting a wonderful smell through the cosy kitchen.

“Why do I get the couch?” Sam mumbles into his mug petulantly. 

“Blaine is a guest in this house, I’m not letting him sleep on the couch,” she scolds, pointing a wooden spoon at him.

Blaine chuckles. “We’ll probably be here for a couple of days, Sam, I’ll take the couch tomorrow night.” Sam cuts him a glare, but it’s weak and he’s already fighting back a smile.

Mr. Evans doesn’t fight it; he snorts right into his cup of coffee to Sam’s left. Blaine thinks he’s going to really like it here.

Sam’s just glad to be home. 

He’s missed his parents and siblings, but he’s also glad that Blaine’s here. When he comes home, he finds he misses his best friend, and having both of them here at once is like having the best of both worlds. 

Blaine looks  _ right _ sitting at his scrubbed kitchen table, he looks  _ right _ sitting cross legged on the floor with Stevie and Stacey, he looks  _ right _ curled up on the back porch with a book next to Sam while he absently strums his guitar, when the kids have gone to bed. 

Blaine looks so much happier there, away from everything McKinley, which is a relief, because Blaine looking happy, much less being happy, was so rare for so long this year. Sam is elated to see him so unburdened. 

Apparently how he feels is obvious.

“I’ve never seen you look so happy than you do when Blaine smiles,” his mother says, drifting around the kitchen. He sits at the table, with a sweating glass of lemonade in his hand. The sounds of the kids and Blaine come through the open back door. She smiles at him like she knows something.

“Yeah, well,” he says, “He was pretty depressed a few months ago.” He shrugs, sips his lemonade. “Like, super depressed - he couldn’t sing, didn’t get out of bed, for days sometimes. Mom,” He leans closer to her, as she sits down across from him, “Mom, he nearly moved schools.”

She purses her lips. “Was it really that bad?” 

Sam nods. “Kurt and him had a really messy breakup and, it was like, ‘pick a side!’ And he was hiding it from us until he couldn’t hide it anymore, and me and Tina -”

“Tina and I -” his mother corrects gently, .

“- Tina and I made him see a doctor.” Sam takes a deep breath. “He’s been doing better. That’s why I suggested the road trip, I was just worried -” He looks into the bottom of his glass, watching the ice melt for a second. “I was worried going to New York, right away, after everything, would send him backwards.”

“Sammy,” she says, folding a hand over his free one. She doesn’t say anything else, but it already feels like enough to have admitted that out loud. 

“You love him, don’t you?” She asks quietly. He was expecting it, but he still flinches. 

“Yeah, I think I do,” he mumbles, face turned downwards. “But it’s all so messed up, Mom, he’s still getting back on his feet, and him and Kurt -” He lets out a loud whooshing breath. “And I’ve never loved someone like this before, I loved Mecerdes and Brittany, but this feels different -”

She reaches forward to tilt his head up so he has to look at her. “Sammy, you know we don’t care about any of that stuff, love is love.” Her voice is firm and he pushes his face against her hand, cupping his cheek now.

“I know, but it’s still hard, Mom.”

“I can’t figure it out for you, baby,” she says softly, squeezing their clasped hands, “But it’ll be okay.”

Sam believes her. 

The noise outside raises in pitch suddenly, with his brother and sister giggling helplessly, and Blaine shouting his name. He kisses his mom’s forehead, before heading out to the yard. 

His best friend is face down in the grass with Stevie and Stacey sitting on his back. He can’t help but smile, in spite of himself.

They end up staying with the Evans’ for about a week, before they hit the road again with freshly laundered everything, courtesy of Mrs. Evans (“ _ Call me Mary _ ,” she continues to insist to Blaine, even as they load everything into the car).

“Take care of yourselves,” she whispers in his ear when she hugs him tight. “Keep that son of mine alive for me,” she says, louder so Sam gives her a good-natured eye-roll. 

Stevie and Stacey both give them multiple hugs and cling like koalas, and saying goodbye to them does break Blaine’s heart a little bit. He can’t imagine what it’s like for Sam. 

They watch the family wave in the rear-view mirror until they’re out of site, and Sam sighs.

“It’s always hard to leave them,” is all he says about it, eyes unwavering on the road. Blaine hums in response and grips his shoulder for a second. He hopes it’s comforting. Sam turns up the radio, and they’re quiet for a long while. 

The days seem to melt away after that. They go to the World’s Biggest Ball of Twine, the World’s Largest Easel, and a few smaller tourist-y things along the way.

It feels good to let loose and be spontaneous like this. Most of his teenage life, he’s had to be mature and confident and in control of everything he does. He thinks it started in a hospital bed, at age fourteen because he went to a dance with another boy. He’d felt so vulnerable then, that he’s felt the need to make up for it for the last half decade, a facade that had finally cracked in these past few months. 

Being near Sam helps him let go of that; it’s like Sam has been chipping away at the false face he wears sometimes, slowly wearing it down to the point where going on a road trip across the country with just a duffel of clothes to his name is an easy thing to agree to.

“We should find somewhere to sleep soon,” Blaine comments, instead of saying any of those things. 

Sam scans the little town they’re cruising through looking for motels to crash in. “We should get some food too,” he mumbles absently, eyes still searching for a neon sign.

Blaine stops himself from smiling at that; six months ago, Sam wouldn’t have even mentioned food of his own accord. He’s come a long way. Blaine is proud.

“Here!” Blaine points at the eye wateringly bright sign in electric green,  _ The Sleep Easy Inn _ . Sam looks across at him and grins.

They drive around the parking lot looking for an empty space, Sam weaving through the narrow routes at a leisurely speed. It’s a cool night when he steps out of the car, the street lighting harsh and white, illuminating the sidewalk like daytime. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, wishing he’d brought a sweater in his bag.

“You cold?” Sam asks, looking at him sidelong, before tugging off his own hoodie and wrapping it around Blaine, despite his protests. “It’s fine, dude, just take it.”

The sweatshirt still smells faintly of the detergent Sam’s mom used, and a bit like the car when it gets really warm but not unpleasantly so, but mostly something inherently Sam Evans.  It’s comforting. 

Sam books them into a double queen (but Blaine knows they’re going to fall asleep on the same bed anyways), while Blaine leafs through a pamphlet stand of local tourist sites.

After they dump their bags in the room, they wander along the main street of this little town to find some place to eat. As they scoot into a vinyl booth in a little hole-in-the-wall diner, a sign proudly proclaims that the establishment is open twenty-four hours a day. The place is deserted, and when Blaine glances at the retro clock on the wall, he understands why; it’s coming up to 1:30am.

They pour over the menu, quiet. They’re both tired from a long day’s travel, and anyways, they’ve gotten to the point where they don’t need to talk all the time. Being together is just enough.  

The waitress who sidles up to the table is tall and blonde with a bust emphasised by the strained buttons of her uniform. Her name tag reads Jessica. 

“What can I get for you gentlemen?” she drawls with a mildly thick accent. Her eyes linger across Sam’s broad shoulders for a moment longer than strictly necessary. 

“The BLTA,” Blaine tells her. “Toasted.”  She pokes her tongue between her lips as she jots it down into a little notepad, nodding.

She turns her eyes towards Sam, lashes batting, voice honey sweet, “And for you, sugar?”

“Uhm -” Sam glances at the menu again, eyes scanning. “The grilled chicken sandwich.”

Jessica smirks this time, making a note. “That’ll be out in a jiffy, boys.” Then she stalks away behind the counter.

Blaine has to bite his lip to keep from laughing. “You know, I could always sleep in the car tonight,” he suggests, unable to keep the amused lilt from his voice.

“What, why?” Sam’s question is of genuine confusion, his eyebrows furrowing.

“Sam, she was flirting with you.” 

“Really?” Sam goes silent for a second, before shrugging. “I must be more tired than I thought” Then he smiles, “Thanks for the offer though, dude. I’m glad you’d be such a good wingman.”

(Underneath all of the mirth he has for the situation, Blaine feels a hot spike of jealousy. Sam isn’t and never will be his to be possessive of, but his heart still aches. He’ll be a good friend to Sam, he’ll move over to let his best friend get laid.)

It’s 2:45am by the time they leave, with Jessica’s number scrawled on the bottom of the receipt. 

“Are you gonna call her?” Blaine asks, hands shoved deep into the pockets of Sam’s hoodie. “We can hang around for a couple of days, if you want.”

“Nah.” Sam shakes his head. “This is our bro-time, not Operation: Get Sam Laid. Besides, we’d have to get you someone to spend some time with too.” The suggestive arch of Sam’s brow makes Blaine laugh. The noise echoes into the near silent night. 

“Sam, we’re in Kansas,” Blaine reminds him. “It might be a little hard to find a guy for me, unless we sniff out the nearest gay bar. Which I doubt there are many. I’d rather not get shot.”

Blaine laughs humorlessly at his own joke, but the air catches in Sam’s throat when he remembers that his best friend still has a giant X painted on his back, and a voice in his head whispers that he himself might too.

Lying down on his bed later, Sam listens to Blaine hum in the bathroom as his friend gets ready for the night. A neon light from a sign across the street dances on the ceiling of the motel room, and Sam hasn’t got the energy to get up and shut the curtains.

When Jessica was apparently flirting at him, he was actually thinking about him and Blaine. His mom had said everything would be okay and he had believed her; the further from home he gets, the harder it is to keep faith in her words. Sam wants to hold Blaine’s hand while they drive alongside all the prairies, he wants to kiss him with morning breath, he wants to … do other less PG things with Blaine.

But then he remembers that either one of them could be killed in what’s justified to call a hate crime.  _ Everything would be okay, _ she had said, but then again, his mother has been wrong before.

When Blaine finally slides into the bed next to him (after closing the curtains and bypassing the second queen bed, messy with their bags and clothes), Sam knows he won’t be able to sleep tonight.

They hit the road again after breakfast at the same diner (Jessica’s shift is over apparently, as she’s nowhere in sight). They also connect to the internet for the first time in nearly a month and finally see Tom Hiddleston as Loki at San Diego Comic Con. 

“I really hope  _ Thor: The Dark World _ is better than the first  _ Thor _ ,” Sam says. “It needed more thunder.”

Blaine laughs. “Yeah, I hope so too. Man, I wish I could have been in Hall H. I got goosebumps when the whole crowd went silent.”

“Tom Hiddleston is such a good actor, I don’t think anyone else could have pulled off Loki the way he does. And no one else could look sexy with long greasy hair.” 

“I don’t know, Sam, you seem to be pulling it off most days,” Blaine quips. 

“My hair isn’t greasy, shut up,” the blonde responds, pushing strands behind his ear. “You used to dump a gallon of glue on your head everyday, you cannot judge my style choices.”

“And I still would be gelling my hair if _ someone _ ,” he leans forward, with an accusatory tone in his voice, “hadn’t thrown it away during week one. And, anyways, I’m just saying,” Blaine shrugs in annoyingly cool mock-nonchalance, “Maybe you should go back to the bleached blonde.”

Sam throws a balled up packet of Cool Ranch Doritos at him.

The Blam Roadtrip Adventure cannot last forever though, so soon they find themselves turning around as July gives way into August. NYADA classes start on the 9th of September, and Pratt classes start on the 11th, so they have enough time to go home and ship the last of everything to the cosy apartment waiting for them in the city.

The idea of this beautiful period of time coming to a close is heavy on both of their hearts, and school looms in the distance, more terrifying than ever. New classmates, new schools, new city. It’s a lot after a long time of nothing but teen freedom and miles of open road. They’re adults now.

They park a ways off the highway to look at the stars one night, just over the border of Missouri.

“And that one -”

“That one?”

“No, to the left a bit -”

“This one?”

“Yeah! Okay,” Sam starts, “That one is Scorpius -”

“Like Draco Malfoy’s son?”

“Yeah, stop interrupting me.” Sam rolls his eyes as he turns on his side to face Blaine’s prone figure on the blanket they laid out on the rocky ground under them. Blaine looks up at him and then glances back at the sky, squinting slightly. “So Scorpius was a scorpion that was sent to kill Orion, but Orion ran away from him so he could see his girlfriend, Artemis, who was on an island. This guy, Apollo was upset with her, though, so to punish her, he challenged her to shoot the black dot that was swimming in the water. So she did, but it was Orion, and he died.”

“Wow. How’d you know all that?”

Sam lies back down on the blanket, shoulder to shoulder with Blaine. “My grandpa. He thought me the constin - constell - the stars when I was really young. Before Stevie and Stacey were born.”

Blaine is quiet for a minute. “All my grandpa ever told me was to marry a girl from the Philippines. He was just mad that my mom was white and had a kid with someone else first.”

Sam snorts. He shifts to lay his arms under his head, tracing constellations he doesn’t know the names of with his eyes. “He didn’t like Cooper?” When Blaine shakes his head, Sam adds, “I wonder why.” Blaine’s startled chuckle seems to reverberate off the stars and back down onto them. 

“He wasn’t very happy when I came out, but he passed away a year late, so,” Blaine shrugs, not finishing his sentence.

“B, uh,” Sam starts. His voice already sounds unsure after two syllables. “Uh, how did you know you were gay?” When he glances sideways, face screwed up with instant regret, Blaine’s eyebrows were raised in surprise.

“I guess I just knew?” He responds. The air around them is so still it feels like they're the only thing that exists under the stars tonight, the only voices their own. “I know everyone says ‘I knew I was different,’ but I did,” Blaine insists. “I didn’t know I could like boys, so I thought that I just really wanted to be friends with some of them. And then when I was thirteen realised what it actually was, so I came out to my parents, and, well - you know how that went.”

Sam nods solemnly, remembers the halted whispers shared in the dead of night. The story of Blaine’s father’s angry voice and the retraction of all interest in his life, until he suddenly wanted to rebuild a car with him. Blaine’s voice had faltered when he explained it was a ploy to “straighten him out.” His mother’s confusion and entitlement, and how slowly they replaced parental care with money and gifts, trying to make up for the love they weren't willing to give anymore.

(In return, Sam gave him the stories of the strip club. How the patrons weren’t supposed to touch, but did anyways, and how at any given time the staff bathroom could have someone throwing up their dinner, or abusing some kind of drug to make it through the night. Sam knows not all strip clubs are this way; but what can you expect from one that hired a sixteen year old to dance for middle-aged women in booty shorts?)

“Why?” Blaine asks, rolling his head to the side to look into Sam’s thoughtful face.

“Just wondering,” Sam answers, shrugging with what is obviously discomfort. He just hopes Blaine doesn’t take it the wrong way, whichever wrong way there is to take it.

They’re silent for a long while, eyes on the sky, before Blaine suggests that they get a start on driving; they’re probably only a couple of hours from the next town anyways. Blaine slides into the driver’s side door, and when Sam curls up in the back, neither say anything. 

The car rumbles to life, and Sam shuts his eyes and tries not to think, for a while.

There’s an loud rapping on glass somewhere above his head, waking him from a fitful sleep against the car door. When he finally looks up, Blaine is knocking on the glass of the window, holding two steaming paper cups.

The fabric of the seat is cold when he slides across it, making room for Blaine to climb into the back. 

“It’s Earl Grey,” his friend tells him as he passes him the cup. The heat is just edging into unpleasant against the skin of his hand but it helps him wake up. 

“Thanks,” he mumbles against the plastic rim. “Uh, dude, I wanted to ask you something -” 

Sam finally looks up to meet Blaine’s eyes. His expression is open and patient and the slightest amount worried. He puts his hand on Sam’s knee, rubs circles into the fabric of his jeans. The heat bleeds through the clothes, comforting.

“Do you still have feelings for me? Like you did before?” 

Blaine’s face shifts to surprise and then twists into a shy kind of guilt, turning to look away. He admits, “yeah,” quietly into the thick atmosphere of the car, voice small. “Yeah, I do, Sam.”

Sam nods, lips pursed and eyebrow furrowed. He takes a deep breath. “B, look at me.”  Blaine’s face is open and vulnerable, guilt and discomfort playing across his features. Sam does the thing he’s wanted to do since before graduation, where the lines of his feelings blurred into something wholly non-platonic. 

Sam kisses him. 

In his head, the times he’s let himself imagine this, they’re in the choir room or at Blaine’s house watching movies, and his best friend tastes like his chapstick and honey, and it’s perfect.

Right now, they’re crowded into the back of Sam’s dinged up car, just edging into Kentucky again, and their mouths taste like his own morning breath and whatever coffee Blaine picked up for himself, something with far too much sugar, and their teeth clash painfully for a few seconds. It’s still perfect. 

Sam leans back a fraction, Blaine’s lips a hairswith from his own. His friend huffs out a laugh that fans across the wet skin of his mouth, whispers, breathlessly hopeful, “Really?” Sam just kisses him again, as an answer.

Turning up at the Evans’ house is even better this time around, because one, they called ahead so Mrs. Evans -  _ Mary _ had enough time to set up a cot, and two, Blaine knows she already somehow knows that they’ve finally taken that leap. Mothers are telepathic, Blaine has decided. 

They only stop over for two days. On the second day, while Sam is entertaining his siblings in the yard, Mary sits with him in the living room.

“So he told you, then?”

Blaine tries to keep the smile on his face under control, but he knows it’s probably bright enough to light up all of the McKinely football field. “Yeah, he did.”

“You take care of him for me, you hear me? He needs someone like you in his life.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Mary rolls her eyes at him. “And you take care of yourself. I know New York is a pretty liberal place, but you kids gotta watch your backs. There’s always someone out there who won’t hesitate to hurt two boys holding hands.”

Blaine’s humour drains away, leaving him feeling understandingly somber. He nods.

“I know we look like blue-collar Christians, and we are, but the Bible was written a long time ago, and we know better than to say what you two have isn’t natural,” Mary states, with a firm tone in her voice. She reaches across and takes his hand on the couch cushion between them. “I want you and Sam to be happy.”

“Thank you, Mary.” His voice is choked, so he clears his throat. 

She squeezes tighter for a second before letting go and standing. “Now that I’ve said that, it’s my duty as a mother to show you Sammy’s baby pictures.” 

The tension is instantly gone, replaced with cooing and laughter, even as Sam protests to situation when he finally reappears.

Two days, later they hit the road again, on route to Lima.

They still have to talk about this whole relationship thing, before they leave for New York, and they still have to sort out the last of their belongings, and say goodbye to everyone still at home, but, with Sam’s hand clutching Blaine’s thigh as they drive over asphalt in need of repairs, bellowing the lyrics to Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, they both know everything is going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a list of all the possibly-triggering things mentioned in this story. There's a lot of them but almost all of them are past mentions/implications and non-explicit, or hypothetical and, again, non-explicit. 
> 
> Mental Health issues pertaining to depression and body image (expanded from canon), canonical hate crime (Sadie Hawkins dance), multiple discussions and thought processes on hypothetical hate crimes, homophobia (expanded from canon), negative views on interracial relationships (between white and Asian people), implied but vague negative coming out experience, strained familial relations (expanded from canon), dubious/non-consensual touching, purging, and drug abuse.
> 
> A couple of other small things: 
> 
> Matt Bomer is white, as is Gina Gershon, who played Blaine's mother in "A Wedding," so I HC Blaine and Cooper being half brothers, with Cooper being from a previous relationship. Blaine's father is Filipino in this context then, bc I didn't wanna whitewash Darren.
> 
> I also hc that Tina and Sam realised how depressed Blaine was earlier than in canon and encouraged him to get help. 
> 
> How Blaine realised he was gay was a direct reference to my own queer experience (queerience?), in thinking I just really wanted to be friends with girls I knew, and not putting together the fact that my crushes on boys felt the exact same.
> 
> And last but not least, this fic had some inspiration from "shade our faces from the sun" by the almighty soulgraves. 
> 
> Thank you for reading this long as rambly end note, if you're still here.


End file.
